HiDPI XFCE4

General system Newbie
#1

Hey everyone,

I’m new here and loving it, loving the distro and everything!

It’s just a quick one… I believe I already know the answer from poking around in the theme files.

I’m usually use Gnome for it’s great out-of-box experience with HiDPI, however the XFCE default version got me, you have done an amazing job with it!

The only thing I don’t like about it is the small window manager bar, where the minimize, maximize, close buttons are (See pictures).

arc-dark
arc-dark3000×2000 794 KB

This is Arc Dark theme, as you can see the bar is way too small, let alone clicking the cross…

default-xhdpi
default-xhdpi3000×2000 796 KB

This is the default-xhdpi theme, and this is better but preferably would still like it to be bigger, or at least the buttons.

I’ve looked through the theme files to see what exactly makes these themes different, and it looks like the image sizes. The “close.png” (not original file name) in Arc Dark, is 28x28px, whereas the “close.png” file in default-xhdpi is something like 43x58px (apart from it also being a different file type which I don’t believe affects it, unless it’s because it’s an SVG-type thing as mentioned in the README).

So correct me if I’m wrong, the one way to make the buttons bigger on Arc Dark (other than changing the resolution, which I’ve done and there’s barely a difference), is to either use another HDPI theme which I haven’t found many… or create bigger image dimensions for that theme, which should increase the buttons.

Have I understood this right?

Thanks :slight_smile:

#2

yes i think that’s it, the implementation for hdpi xhdpi in xfce4 is still new, and arc.theme simple do not have this supported currently, but simple hacking it:

#3

Better support for HiDPI is coming in 4.16

https://9to5linux.com/xfce-4-16-first-look-at-the-new-features-and-improvements

#4

Just how hi-dpi are you talking about? I’m on a 4K (28 in) monitor, and what I do is make sure I have a 38px WM theme loaded, which gives me adequate size for the buttons.

Here’s a wiki-like message I posted elsewhere - until I can get it into a proper form for being a wiki over here:

Hope it helps…

Edit: skip the GDK entries - if they are actually used you end up with the same result as the scaling x2! Not what’ s intended…

#5

Thank you, I’ll take a look! :smiley:

#6

I’m looking forward to it! :smiley:

#7

Thank you, I’ll check it out and let you know :slight_smile:

#8

@joekamprad Thank you for sending me that doc, I have a feeling that MD file is slightly out of date, or perhaps, the more likely option, I’m in the wrong place. I’ve gone to /usr/share/themes/Arc/xfwm4 it mentions about having a directory for light and dark, however all I have is a lot of .pngs plus themerc.

I’ll do some further research or wait for 4.16 to come out as it’s around November time I believe. :slight_smile:

#9

the source files for the theme are different from what will be created to install it as a theme :wink:
but i would try to simple change the size of the png files, after creating a copy under users home:

mkdir ~/.local/share/themes/
cp -R /usr/share/themes/Arc-Dark ~/.local/share/themes/Arc-Dark-hdpi

it looks like xfwm uses png files only others using svg files, so could be an issue that the arc-theme is not updated to latest xfce4 changes also…

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